Battered Schroeder to face risky early elections

A BATTERED Gerhard Schroeder yesterday persuaded parliament to agree to hold risky early elections, almost seven years after he swept to power with promises to revive Germany’s economy.

Now unemployment remains in double digits and growth in Europe's largest economy remains dismal as Germans like other Europeans grapple with how to maintain their comfortable high-wage brand of prosperity.

Those pressures mean Schroeder's gamble could fail: challenger Angela Merkel proposes a more pro-business approach, and polls suggest it's working.

The 61-year-old chancellor said he needed a new endorsement from the voters if he is to press on with his reform programme.

He deliberately lost a confidence motion, which failed with 151 votes in support of his government of Social Democrats and Greens, short of the 301 needed to survive in the 601-seat Bundestag, or lower house.

That tossed the election issue to President Horst Koehler. He has 21 days to decide whether the government truly lacks the support it needs to rule effectively; if he agrees, the election would likely be held on September 18.

Koehler is a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats, but under the German constitution is supposed to play a non-partisan role above day-to-day politics.

Merkel, seeking to become Germany's first female chancellor, took the podium to attack Schroeder, saying she "welcomed" the prospect of a battle at the polls.